


Glitches Abound

by femme4jack, Merfilly



Series: Future in the Making [6]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Future Fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 01:57:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of angst, a little clanging, some resolutions, and a new puzzle. Not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glitches Abound

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. References mech/mech interfacing of the spark variety.

An entire cycle of Ironhide locked in with Chromia had Ratchet on edge. He knew it was necessary and hoped it went well, even as he dealt with hating himself. He had had no right to withhold such information from Ironhide. He would not let himself spy in the isolation bay either, instead focusing on doing what he could to repair the various damages within Grimlock's stasis-bound system. Even Prime was wary of how to handle that warrior; the powerful mech had contested Optimus's leadership more than once during the long war. Many thought that if Grimlock had not hated Megatron with a fury blacker than deep space, he would have abandoned the Autobots early on for the Decepticon cause.

When Ironhide did emerge from the cell, Ratchet forced himself to continue his work; trying to apologize for his selfishness would not make this any less grave a matter in his lover's opinion, he was certain. Working on what he loved, fixing damage dealt to a mech, was a focus Ratchet needed, and he gave himself entirely to it, uncaring of how much time passed as he did. The fact that Chromia had remained in her cell told Ratchet that the femme still had not chosen peace; he was thankful she was at least an honorable bot.

When he finally left the cell set aside for Grimlock, he had eased his conscience only some, by knowing he had performed his duties capably, and shunted the matter with Ironhide to the recesses of his processor so that he could deal professionally with whatever was to come next.

What he was not expecting when he cleared the door was the clang of dark armor against his own, strong hands gripping his collar plating and shoving him into the wall. Hungry, hurting fields pushed hard into his own. If the lust and need had not been so blatantly apparent, he might have thought he was being attacked.

"Open, slag you, just open," Ironhide growled. 

Ratchet had experienced this mood too many times over the eons they'd been anchors to one another. An Ironhide desperate to renew a bond was an Ironhide in serious emotional pain, which needed to be dealt with at the level of sparks rather than words. 

Knowing he was the cause of it was almost enough to make him pull away in cowardice, but instead he signaled the door of another cell to open and let Ironhide push him inside even as he parted his plates, his spark feeling like it was both cringing away and reaching out to the call of his mate's simultaneously.

The last thing he expected to feel as they pushed into one another was the depth of self-loathing present in his lover, without a hint of anger toward the medic. It took him so far off-guard that his emotions were lost in the wave of Ironhide's need to be known to him, and then there was only the merge, with all their truths exposed to each other.

`~`~`~`~`

Ratchet brought himself back online ahead of his lover, sprawled across the berth in the cell he'd guided them to with Ironhide still molded to him and pinning him down. Normally, that would be cause for a protest and a medical assist to make Ironhide come back up from the overload, but right now, Ratchet was willing to let it be.

Ironhide wasn't angry at him. Ironhide was angry with himself. And all the complexities behind that shift made Ratchet ache for his old/young lover all the more. Ironhide blamed himself for his loss of memories, for having failed to predict that Sentinel had/would betray them. He was enraged at himself for not being as capable as he believed himself once to have been. He felt had failed to take the time to properly integrate more of his lost experience, instead relying, as he long had, on Ratchet to remember for him and share what was most vital.

When he had realized that the sharing of such memories reopened painful wounds of the spark, especially for Ratchet, he had backed off on his requests. However, he had never taken up the slack by scheduling regular time to integrate memories from his core backup that had always been available to him, including the memories of his lost bondmates. And now Chromia could hardly recognize him as himself with their bond so fully missing.

He felt he had abdicated his responsibilities to his own kind because he had not wished to lose any of the precious time he had with his short-lived human charges, even after it was clear they were relatively safe and did not need his constant guardianship. He had favored the present over both the past and the needs the future might bring, sentimentality over capability.

Faced with the fact that Ratchet had deliberately avoided sharing memories of the femmes, Ironhide had responded that he already knew the medic had been avoiding sharing the more difficult files, and had blamed himself for pushing too hard and failing to, in his words, "be responsible for cleaning up the slagging mess that his failure had made."

Nothing Ratchet had shared in the merge was able to ease Ironhide's misplaced anger with himself, despite his attempts. Underlying it all was the sharp pain of lost bonds to individuals Ironhide could not even remember: Prowl, Chromia, as well as members of Ironhide's original cohort and previous guardianships whose files had been lost to the ages before Ironhide began being more careful with his backups. Ironhide's need to affirm his bond with Ratchet and the remainder of his cohort had taken on a razor-sharp edge having met Chromia and experienced firsthand and the absolute emptiness of the bond that should have been between them. Ratchet had not had an opportunity to settle his lover further before Ironhide was overloading both of them hard with the intensity of his need to fully become one in spark.

"You are such a slagging idiot," he murmured in exasperated affection to the unconscious warrior who had him so thoroughly pinned down. Ironhide would come to, and they would talk. The clearest thing currently in Ratchet's mind was that Ironhide needed to understand that none of them had any reason to suspect Chromia had escaped deactivation. Focusing on the here and now was important, because their survival was still dependent on tying off all the loose ends from the war and forging a stronger alliance with a species that was either indifferent, suspicious, or downright hostile to them over their presence.

`~`~`~`~`

Mikaela was obeying Ratchet by staying out of Medical proper, but that didn't mean she wasn't curious. Optimus was still fretting over the entire situation, but he was also occupied by enjoying Ultra Magnus's and Kup's and Will's company before they had to return to Earth. Even once they had, that would mean Springer and Hot Rod would be returning shortly after, and Optimus would have things to teach the hyperactive mech, keeping him tied up.

She made her brain steer clear of the imagery that phrase brought her, and turned instead to using the Spec Ops hacks she had perfected to pull the relevant data off the medical servers so she could learn things about the two new Autobots on Mars.

The power outputs off the femme were staggering, was Mikaela's first impression. Grimlock's scans were quick and simple, to the point, as he was locked in stasis. A walking armory that could give Ironhide a run for the money, she decided, before going back to study the scans of Chromia in more depth. Despite the passive nature of the ongoing scans, the way they recorded power output and fluctuation were revealing enough to the woman that had managed to effectively cross-train between Jazz and Ratchet in the last forty odd years.

Mikaela reviewed the initial scans from when Chromia had been in stasis-lock, then compared them to her active power consumption and fuel intake since being brought online. She translated the field data into oscillations, then broke those down on a peak display. The more she studied it, the more convinced Mikaela became that something was very wrong.

"Not Ratchet, not Prime..." she murmured to herself, gathering her files and jetting out of the Spec Ops offices to go find her other favorite medic. While most of Defensor's team was on Earth for disaster relief, First Aid was back in Metroplex, working on learning more cybertechnology. So many Earth countries were legislating the tech in ridiculous ways, but Prime's medics and engineers were bound and determined to make it available to those in need.

First Aid immediately pushed back from his terminal as Mikaela came in, sensitive to the varied chemicals humans exuded in response to their emotive states. He gave her a hand up onto his table, then accepted the small -- for him -- data wafer she offered him.

"Look those graphs over and tell me what you see?" Mikaela asked him as he slotted them into his reader. She sat cross-legged on the desk, playing idly with the controls of her armor, running diagnostics, while First Aid studied what she had compiled.

"Mikaela, this is a decaying spark chart," First Aid told her slowly, after having gone over it many times. "Output is fading -- marginally, yes; but definitely fading."

Mikaela breathed out in a whoosh. "I was afraid of that. So, we have to figure out how to repair it, because I think if that femme learns she's not wired for the long run, she'll try to go out in a bang."

"As contrary to self-survival as that theory is, my reading of Ratchet's profile notes on her psychological index concur," First Aid said grimly. "Why not go to Ratchet?"

The woman shook her head, fingers stilling on the dermal controls for the armor. "He doesn't trust himself where she is concerned, and would always second-guess any failures he made."

The much less-experienced medic did at least understand that, and he pulled up a new session on the servers to start mapping out the known data with his fellow student.

`~`~`~`~`

Kup listened as the young Prime -- by his own measurement of the ages, at least -- explained what had happened on Cybertron that they now had two Autobot prisoners. Ultra Magnus was doing a fine job of trying to offer advice and the whole speech on doing what was necessary to preserve their species, but neither of them were thinking beyond the idea this was solely Prime's burden.

The way Kup looked at it, however, every Autobot in existence needed to be pitching in to help each other get over the war, to get back to what was important. While the whole thing with the femme was very tangled for the lead cohort, there was less at personal stake with the warrior mech. In fact, Grimlock being away from Optimus Prime might be in the very best interest of all their race, given the warrior's attitudes.

"All well and good, Magnus, but the thing Optimus needs now is solid help, not hand holding." Kup's intrusion into the conversation had both younger mechs looking at him in surprise and interest. "We'll take Grimlock to Earth with us."

"We'll what?" came out of Ultra Magnus's vocalizer in the same instant as Optimus spoke.

"That could be very unwise."

"Fah, Optimus! Grimlock's a charger, headstrong and full of ideas, so challenges like the disaster relief teams, rebuilding crews, and the occasional UN-sanction would be good for him. And yes, Stiff-bottom, we will." Between the pet name and the firm tone, Ultra Magnus realized his cohort founder had made a decree that was not going to be rescinded. At all.

"I don't..."

"...have any need to contend with both burdens at once," Kup finished for the young Prime. "We'll keep Springer and the lad down there with us a time. Grimlock will remember Springer from the early days, and you have to admit Roddy's a charmer when he wants to be."

Optimus laughed softly, fondly even. His eventual successor was more than simply charming. "Kup, has anyone ever managed to say no to you?"

Kup gave all appearances of searching his extensive memory core. "Maybe once. I was pretty certain one moon would be enough, but they went and engineered a second one over my protest," he said, deadpan serious... and then all three mechs got to laugh for the joke.


End file.
